Twilight Forums

>>We already have a thread for this type of discussion.---Therum<<


Just post any ideas on "ascension" here.

Here is mine:

This occurs after the final quest:

You walk back home, tired, but happy. You did stop Mick.

A few days pass. Nothing happens. Crime has come to a halt. You sit down and turn the t.v. to the news station.

"And a crime spree has begun in (insert town name). Officials say that if it keeps up, the town may be evacuated."

This was the calling you were waiting for! Do you wish to go to (town name)?

Yes No

If you pick yes: You call the movers and ask them to come over. They get everything ready for the big move. Before you leave, you reflect on what you have learned. You feel something strange happen to your body. Your memory expands so you can permanently remember the feeling of one skill... (This is where you can perm a skill. This skill won't go away even with transmogrifing)

You buy a plane ticket to take you to (town name).

After you arrive at your apartment, you notice the movers haven't arrived and that you feel terrible from the jet-lag. You also notice that your (beginning talisman) is on the table. Odd.

Explanation: You will have a "ronin" period where the movers take a little while to get to your apartmet. Because of the jet-lag, you are too dazed to recieve items.

If you pick no: You continue to watch the news. The option is always there, big guy.

Explanation: From then on, there is an option in your hideout where you can "call the movers" and "ascend".
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Eh. I know it needs a lot of work, but I think this could work.

Mick defeated, twilight is now a peaceful town, the economy is steadily improving, and so is everything else, it almost looks like a real town. Your job done you head out into the desert and live in a small house. Rand arranged for the city to pay for you to live out a quiet life.

Your very happy in your new house...

3 years pass

Your watching the news and a story from twilight comes on. In watching you learn of a new threat to twilight, Mick had a son, and he has taken his fathers place. You watch as graphs and charts are shown, showing a decline in the economy and an increase in violent crimes. You know what has to be done.

You go into your bed room and open the old dusty chest where you kept all of your s tuff, you rumage for a while, finding all of your old possesions...almost

Your talisman is missing, you look everywhere, it's lost. You go to bed depressed, and angry that there is nothing you can do. That night you have a dream.

CHOOSE CLASS

class dream

When you wake up, you find a talisman on the bed stand, you equip it and feel the new power run through you... but you remember something... something from before, an old, more firmiliar skill

CHOOSE PERMENANT SKILL

You head into town, ready to find out whats going on, other heroes have also come back to answer the call, you decide it would be best to lay low, not make contact with these other heroes untill you've gotten yourself situated with your new powers

Gains Laying Low Effect, (essencially ronin)

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Mine also needs a lot of work

Perhaps we could combine them. They are both good, and both of our ideas have their strong points.

How about this for a combination:

You walk back home, tired, but happy. You did stop Mick.

A few days pass. Nothing happens. Crime has come to a halt. You continue you doing your job..and now getting a little more sleep you get a promotion.

3 years pass

You sit down and turn the t.v. to the news station.

"And a crime spree has begun in (insert town name). Officials say that if it keeps up, the town may be evacuated."

This was the calling you were waiting for! Do you wish to go to (town name)?

Yes or No

When Yes is chosen:
After hearing the story to it's end you run into your bed room and open up the old dusty wooden chest where you keep your old hero stuff. You find all of your stuff...except, something is missing, your talisman, the source of your old hero powers is missing.

You search the rest of the house, but find nothing, it is lost. You go to bed angry, and depressed -

CHOOSE CLASS

class dream...

You wake up, and to your suprise the talisman from your dream is sitting on the bedside table next to you, you equip it and a new power runs through you...Along with your new power, you feel some of your old power coming back, it's only a little, but it is strong...

CHOOSE PERMENANT SKILL

The Movers come the next day and you move into a new apartment, and quickly get a new mundane job...it doesn't pay very much, but takes care of the rent. Lots of other heroes have also moved into this new city to try and take out the crime, but you decide it would be best if you laylow for awhile, at least untill you are more comfertable with the imidate area

Gain 5000 minutes of Laying Low (ronin)
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Probably still needs a lot of work

*edited turns to minutes*

Both interesting ideas, although coming up with a new city name for each ascension would be tough. I'd assume if Ryme implements this it'll be similar to the KoL, where you begin in the same situation all over again, minus the absurdist satire that we all love.

One way it might be pulled off here:

Once the Mick is defeated, there could be some sort of supernatural plane you're sent to for a quest or two. Perhaps you're taking on the forces of evil which sparked the Mick and his hordes in the first place.

Upon defeating this supernatural evil, something happens (an explosion, or you're knocked out in some way) and when you come to, you're back at your place as you were at the start of the previous run, with only the memory of (permanent skill) in your mind to use this time around. Ironically, there's some sort of note indicating all the stuff you accumulated from the last run was left for you by someone with the same name as you, and that you might find it comes in handy sooner or later.

Just my two cents riding a fever and no sleep. If it's a good one, I'll swear off sleeping.

Dynamo that is a great ascension idea. I think it is probably my favorite so far. I dont think that it would be that hard to come up with ascension names. If they were the same for everyone all you would have to do was come up with like 500 names. There are so many name generators that it would be fairly simple to come up with dwarf names that are cities in Africa.

Here's my second idea:

Mick defeated you return home, a few days pass and the city's economy grows and crime rate shrinks. You also recieve a letter in the post, with a "delayed" stamp on it. It's from the police department of twilight. You read the letter...Rand is dead! You look at the date, that can't be...it's the same date as the day you saved him in the Neighborly Neighborhood. You leave your house, but it doesn't look like twilight, there is a new building you have never seen before, it has a giant "M" on the top.

Suddenly you are grabbed by the arm and pulled into a corner, it's Susan
Novak, she hushes you and whispers...
"Something terrible has happened, Mick, he's back..."

"How..wait" you start, but she hushes you,

"He has some sort of device, you left him barely alive, but it was enough for him to use this device"

"What de..." you try again...

"I'm getting to that...just listen!" she says forcefully "this device takes the users brain pattern, and transports it backwards through time, applying it to that same person's past self. Mick learned of you much earlier than you thought, and that mick that you killed, that wasn't really Mick..." she babbles on for awhile about Mick being mick when you fought him but since he used the device it wasn't Mick anymore...it confuses you.

"My point is, he is now more powerful than you could ever imagine, there is no way you can defeat him now" she finishes

"Well I have to try" you say boldly

"No! I managed to get my hands on Mick's device blueprints and built one for myself. I can send your brain pattern back into the past, and you can stop Rand from being killed which will stop this from ever happening!"... your dumbfounded to say the least... "Just come with me" she says as she pulls you into a door which aprantly leads to her lab.

She pushes you into the machine "When you get there your only going to remember a little of this..only have a little of your power, but don't worry, you get a new future..." she notices shes still confuses you "you'll see" she says as she flips a switch.

A tingling runs down your spine...

CHOOSE CLASS

class dream

You wake up with the talisman equiped, filled with a new power...but you also remember what happened with Susan Novak, and your a bit confused...she did say you would have some of your old powers though

CHOOSE PERMENANT SKILL

Mick must be back here causing trouble again, so you decide being so confused and not exactly sure whats going on, yo should Lay low for a while, not interact with any other heroes, you don't want to let Mick know your back.

Gain 5000 minutes of Laying Low

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Kind of a totally differant sci-fi idea

I think the benefits of my second idea are good..there is still crime to fight past ascension, and it's a simple time loop..no matter how many times you beat up mick he jumps back into his machine and goes into the past, starting everything a new...I dunno, I kinda like it

I like Smeg's time device idea alot. It would also work well with the Karma idea suggested by Magininja and developed by others in this thread here.

Your first ascension could give you a choice to travel down a karmic route as well as choose a new class. And you Karma score could determine the skills you receive or keep when ascending.

Is it just me, or are we really pushing this game to be more like KoL? Sure, the database is basically full of people who play (or used to play) KoL, but shouldn't we bring it towards a different game? Otherwise, it will always be foreshadowed by KoL which may or may not be a good thing.

But in my opinion, it's not. Sure, it may bring more players, but it will always be KoL's 'little brother' or something. But then again, it is repeatability that makes a game playable but these 'karmic paths' and 'ronin' really are just ripped off KoL. I don't have any suggestions (I'm not that sort of person ) but it really does seem KoL-esque. Anybody have something which does not include 'paths' or 'ronin'?

But the keeping of skills really is a must. So don't remove that. It gives the player something to look forward to per ascension.

End rant. Exit stage centre.

Ascension in KoL is what guarantees replayability. Lack of a function like this - that rewards the player for shouldering the at times arduous task of confronting the RNG - means lack of replayability which means loss of interest which is bad.

_________________
"The world of madness is a lot bigger than the world of sane."

Cornuthaum, #1234

I kinda thought we shouldn't keep skills.

Hear me out.

What I thought was, take a bunch of famous superheroes and assign them to each class. Let's take Batman for example. Clearly, he's a Gadgeteer. Now, when you complete the game as a Gadgeteer, instead of keeping a Gadgeteer skill, you get to pick out of a bunch of, well, I'll call them perks for the time being. These perks are somewhat like skills, except they're not as powerful - like, if there was a martial arts perk, it would only be half as strong as the Gadgeteer's martial arts.

Now, to Batman. When you complete as a Gadgeteer, you're offered a selection of perks, and some of these come under the heading "Thing of the Night", with a little blurb about how a baby bat witnessed its bat parents being killed by an eagle and then flew down a chimney and got terrified by all the scary humans, and ever since then the bat adopted human gadget and techniques to bring justice to his lawless little batworld.

And then you'd get a series of perks satirising Batman (endless supply of improbably-shaped throwing knives, etc), one of which you could pick, and that perk stays with you for the rest of your character's life. There could be merit badges or additional perks for picking up all of Batman's perks, or maybe a new quest that parallels Batman's story, or just a nice new item (the bat suit) or transport (the batmobile).

Of course, not every set of perks will be as extensive as Batman's perks, and the rewards will obviously differ depending on how many perks you have to get. It allows you to get that sense of building a persona up, I think. Anyway regardless of how "ascension" is implemented, I'd like to throw my 2 cents in and ask that skills aren't made permanent, but rather some other sort of perk becomes available.

And yeah, I need to come up with a better name than "perk" because that's Fallout terminology and this game isn't Fallout.

_________________
out-out the lights-out all! and over each quivering form
the curtain, a funeral pall, comes down with the rush of a storm
and the angels all pallid and wan, uprising unveiling affirm
that the play is the tragedy man, and its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Now collecting 'perks' - special, replay-only bennies, that stack over time - this sounds more interesting to me than collecting skills from the various classes. That's an idea I could really get behind.

It gives the classes a firmer identity and flavor (since the only way you could get a wind warrior, for instance, would be by being a psion), but still give you benefits and incentive to play, and replay.

As a person who's never played fallout, "perk" felt like a perfectly appropriate word. But if you don't like it, there are alternatives: "fringe benefit" "lagniappe", "honorarium" to name three pulled randomly from thesaurus.com.

_________________
Alexander Cherry
Twisted Confessions

I'm surprised no one locked this earlier. There is already a thread on this subject.

http://twilightheroes.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=50

Oh, sure, just ignore me. =p---Therum